Increase your conversion ratios by improving your software setup. The installer of your software application is an integral part of your product. It is the first thing the user sees, and yet, it is often overlooked. First impressions matter, and more importantly, if installing your software isn’t as easy as possible, you are losing installs, potential customers and revenue.

When it comes to installers, what should you try to improve? The goals are to:

• Make the installation process as short as possible
• Make the installation process as easy and simple as possible
• Make a solid and professional impression
• Use the opportunity to install shortcuts to the software, as well as links to your website(s), to the proper places

Basically, we are trying to maximize the successful install ratio, make a good impression, and utilize the opportunity to install shortcuts to your product and your website (without annoying the user, obviously!).

You can also use the setup (installer) as a sales tool in some cases. I will write more on that in the future.

Eliminating steps

Modern installers, like the Opera browser installer, have just 1 or 2 step. Chrome installer has zero steps – it asks you whether you want to make Chrome the default browser, and whether you agree to the EULA, before you download the actual setup file! When you run the setup file, no user interaction is required. It just installs and runs Chrome.

Majority of currently used setup creators, including Inno Setup and NSIS, are wizard-based. Unfortunately, most of these packages have far too many unnecessary steps.

For example, the default steps in Inno setup installer are:

• Welcome
• License Agreement
• Select Destination Location
• Select Start Menu Folder
• Ready To Install
• Installing
• Setup Completed

Making the user to go through 5 pages before the actual installation begins is usually completely unnecessary.

In an ideal world, there could be just one page with big Install button, and pre-checked checkbox “I agree with the EULA”. There should be a link to display the EULA. Optionally, the page can also contain “Advanced…” link/button that will display a small modal dialog that will allow the user to customize the destination folder, and possibly shortcuts. And that’s it! You don’t need anything else.

The installer of the Opera browser is a great example. Check it out at http://www.opera.com/download/ – it has just a single page, and is absolutely beautiful.

So, what you should do is to go through all steps of your installer, and eliminate everything that is not necessary.

Let me give you a couple of examples from Inno setup -

The “License” step of Inno Setup requires the user to click the “I agree” option button, and then click the “Next” button. You can simply remove the option buttons, and change the text of the “Next” button to “I Agree” in this step.

Please note: I am not a lawyer, and I am looking at this purely from the perspective of maximizing the number of successful installs. It is possible that making it “too easy” to accept the EULA can undermine its validity. Do your own research first.

Even the destination folder is sometimes unnecessary, and can be entirely skipped, especially when it comes to simple consumer apps and utilities.

Start Menu folder selection step is completely unnecessary, too.

“Ready To Install” step is useless. Get rid of it.

With a little effort, your refined wizard can be like this:

• Welcome
• License Agreement (simplified)
• Installing
• Setup Completed

You can even remove the “Welcome” step, but you will probably want to make the “License Agreement” step look pretty, as the Welcome step usually displays some fancy graphics.

Making it easier and simpler

There are many things you can do. All general principles of user friendly design apply to installers as well. Some tips -

• If possible, don’t require elevated admin privileges in your installer. Many users are not running an admin account. This can be a big problem especially at their workplace, where they need to ask for permission the IT manager or boss. If your setup works even without the elevated privileges, it is a big win – you will most certainly get more installs. For example, Chrome installer doesn’t require elevated privileges and installs into the current user AppData\Local directory (this also allows automatic updates without elevated privileges).
• Eliminate all unnecessary text and controls. For example, Inno setup displays free disk space on the directory selection page, which is useless for majority of applications, because Windows display warning when the disk space is lower than a few hundred of MBs anyway, and your application is probably much smaller.

When building wizard-based installers:

• If possible, make the “Next” button large and prominent.
• Make sure that the “Next” button is selected (has focus) by default. So when someone just runs the installer and presses the spacebar key, he will always proceed to the next step of the installation.
• In many cases, you will discover that you can simply hide the “Back” button. How likely it is that someone will want to re-read that EULA?

Shortcuts and Internet Shortcuts (.url)

I recommend installing these shortcuts:

• Application shortcut on the desktop
• Application shortcut in the Quick Launch toolbar
• Application shortcut in the Start Menu
• Company website link in the Start Menu
• Purchase link in the Start Menu
• “Contact Us” link in the Start Menu
• Help file shortcut in the Start Menu

Other ideas include:

• Online FAQ/knowledge base link in the Start Menu
• Online forum link in the Start Menu
• Blog link in the Start Menu
• Facebook link in the Start Menu
• Twitter link in the Start Menu

All Start Menu links should be placed in a subfolder named after your application.

Definitely place a shortcut to your application on the user desktop. You don’t even need to ask the user in the installer. You can do the same for Quick Launch toolbar.

Avoid placing generic shortcuts to your website(s) on the desktop – having a shortcut named “Buy” placed on the user’s desktop is a big NO-NO.
All shortcuts created by the installer must be either placed in the proper subfolder of the Start Menu, or, contain the actual name of your software product, e.g. “Buy My Awesome App”, not just “Buy”.

Also, never place a shortcut “More Software from My Company” on the user’s desktop. As a rule of thumb, anything that could be considered an “ad” should be avoided. Feel free to go link-mad in the Start Menu folder of your application, but be careful when placing links to the user desktop.

Making a solid impression

I have three quick tips to offer here:

• Make sure that your installer is code signed. This is a must. Installer is by far the place where having a signed executable counts the most. You can get a code signing certificate from K Software for superb price, and Mitchell, a fellow mISV vendor, offers great support, too.
• Include an attractive graphics in the installer. Don’t settle for the default images. Ideally, get it made by a professional designer.
• Don’t change the default installer icon, or at least make sure that it looks like an actual installation icon. Using the same icon as your application has might seem like a good idea, but the installer icon shouldn’t be confusable with the icon of your actual application.

Conclusion

Simplifying the installation process and making your setup more polished and professional is an area that offers excellent ROI revenue-wise, especially if you have yet not touched your installer a lot.

Easier installation => more installs => more users => more customers. It’s really that simple.

Related Posts:

• Uninstall Surveys
• The new ISVCon
• 30 books everyone in software business should read (and why)
• Collecting charity donations on your order page

Optimizing your installer (setup) for higher conversions is a post from: Micro-ISV Insights Blog

Software uninstall surveys are an invaluable marketing, sales and feedback tool. If you are currently not collecting uninstall surveys, this post might make you reconsider.

What is an uninstall survey? It is a form that users who uninstall your software are asked to fill and submit, and the results are sent to you. The survey should be always optional and non-obtrusive.

Why should you do uninstall surveys

As with almost everything in business, the main reason for doing uninstall surveys is to increase your profit, and spot any issues that prevent your users from being happy with your products.

Uninstall surveys help you boost profit in multiple ways:

1. You will get useful, actionable feedback. (More on this later)
2. You can make a sale by offering a discount or another special deal.
3. You can offer the user an alternative product.
4. You can collect email addresses, to get back to your users.

Uninstall surveys allow you to take advantage of many monetization, business development and customer relationship building opportunities.

How to do uninstall surveys

The best way is to probably create a hidden “Why have you uninstalled My Awesome App?” page on your website. Do not link to it from anywhere on your website, open it only directly from the uninstaller of your software.

When someone uninstalls your software, simply launch the URL from the uninstaller. ShellExecute will do.

If you use Inno Setup, you can use the following code:

procedure CurUninstallStepChanged(CurUninstallStep: TUninstallStep);
var ErrorCode:integer;
begin
if IsUninstaller and not UninstallSilent then begin
  if CurUninstallStep = usDone then begin
    ShellExec('open', 'http://www.mywebsite.com/why-uninstall-my-awesome-app', '', '', SW_SHOW, ewWaitUntilTerminated, ErrorCode);
  end;
end;
end;


There is also an Inno setup .dll plugin which allows you to do the uninstall survey directly from the uninstaller, but I do not recommend it for two reasons – first, it is prone to firewall issues. Second, it doesn’t give you the same flexibility as a page on your website, which you can change at any time to introduce new promotions, tweaks, etc.

You probably shouldn’t launch the URL for users that have already purchased your application. Check for the presence of a valid registration in the uninstaller, and when detected, don’t launch the URL with the uninstall survey. (You do not need to validate the registration, just quickly check if the reg. info is stored.)

If you want to get fancy, you can also submit the Windows version to the uninstall survey page via HTTP GET method from the uninstaller.

Designing your “Why Uninstall?” Page

If you are selling multiple products, you should have a separate why uninstall page for every of your products.

The design of the why uninstall page depends entirely on your goals. Our uninstall form looks basically like this:

Reason: [Dropdown list of possible reasons]
Comments: [Multi-line text area]
Email address (Optional):

But, for example, if we were offering a mature enterprise product, I would probably remove the Reason dropdown, and make email address non-optional.

The “Reason” dropdown can include these reasons:

• Can’t start the program (What happens?)
• Expensive
• Complex
• Hard to use
• Missing features (Which?)
• Too short trial
• Crashes, errors
• Found another program (Which?)

Customize this list. E.g. if you are aware of some very important feature that is missing in your product, add it to the list of reasons.

It doesn’t hurt to include some graphics or stock photo to capture attention. It can be a sundown, a sad puppy, sailboat disappearing in a distance – just about anything that represents “leaving”. Making it emotional will probably slightly increase the number of answers you will receive, but do not try to induce guilt in the user. It is okay to say “We are sorry to see you go”, but don’t communicate exaggerated despair or be manipulative.

Furthermore, your uninstall survey should communicate trust, just like your buy page. You can include your mailing address, assure the user that you won’t share or spam his email address, include any “trusted” badges/logos that your site has, etc. You can also place a little “shield” icon into the “Submit” button of the uninstall survey, which conveys trust and confidentiality.

You can also make it personal – include your photo and signature, and communicate that you really care about offering the best possible product, and give the user the opportunity to help you out.

Getting the most out of the uninstall surveys

The cool thing is that you can take an action based on the uninstallation reason the user has reported.

Some of these actions can be even automated.

• Trial is too short? Extend the trial for that user.
• The program is too expensive? Offer a discount.
• Errors are present? Make a fix and send it to the user.
• The program is hard to use? Educate the user, and update your help files and guides.
• The program is too complex? Offer your simpler product.
• The program is too simple? Offer your more advanced product.

You get the idea.

If your application is priced low (below $50), consider utilizing TrialPay.

TrialPay allows your users to get your app for free, in exchange for signing-up for a trial of a 3rd-party product, or completing some offer from one of the TrialPay partners. You will then be paid by TrialPay. You will most likely get higher conversion rates with TrialPay than by offering a discount yourself, but the average payout will be probably lower. You need to test this yourself – it depends on your product. I would say that popular, broad consumer-oriented products would work best with TrialPay.

The most important thing is to reply to everyone who left their email address, either automatically, or personally, and try to “save” the sale. It might seem like it’s not worth it, but you can achieve pretty amazing conversion rates.

Think about the survey participants as folks who are sitting on the fence. Reaching to them and showing that you care is sometimes all you need to do in order to win them over, especially if you also offer them a discount.

Feedback full of golden nuggets

The feedback you will get from the uninstall surveys can be extremely valuable.

Just think about it – when multiple users say “I would purchase your product if it had a feature X”, then it is almost guaranteed that if you include the feature X, your sales will increase.

Or, if only a small fraction of the survey participants state that the product is too expensive, your pricing is probably too low.

A typical participant of the uninstall survey will probably be different from a typical user that emails you directly. There is some overlap, but getting the feedback from the former group can be very, very valuable.

I’m always happy to help. If you have any questions or comments, reach me at novotny@dextronet.com

Related Posts:

• Optimizing your installer (setup) for higher conversions
• 30 books everyone in software business should read (and why)
• Collecting charity donations on your order page
• The new ISVCon

Uninstall Surveys is a post from: Micro-ISV Insights Blog